Roasting Hatch Peppers

It is Hatch pepper season.

My local grocery store was having a sale so I bought a bunch.

Had a few raw that I  chopped and had on a burger for some extra taste and had the in a few other dishes.

Nice amount of heat, nothing to much bu enough to know its there, great flavor, and it tastes better than a jalapeno, IMHO. 

I had a lot leftover so I decided to roast them.

 I grilled them on a friend's propane grill.

Once all roasty,  I had them sweat in a bowl covered in plastic wrap for 15 minutes.

Then I proceeded to skin them and the burned parts came off quite easily, leaving behind wonderful and tasty roasted peppers.

 These then got placed in quart ziploc bags and put away for later use.

 I did, however, forget one rather important step.

Yep, I wasn't wearing gloves. There were no food gloves available.

So, after peeling the peppers and putting them away, I washed my hands repeatedly with dish soap, dried them and washed them again with the soap. Did that cycle 5 times. 

This should have been sufficient. 

Should have being the operative words, but it was not. 

A few hours later, I went to take out my contacts, again washing my hands well before doing so.

Nope, that didn't help either, the peppers got their revenge. 

Fingers removed contact lenses and then instantly: 

Ouch. Frack, Ouch.

I think this is probably what being pepper sprayed feels like.  

Ouch, more Ouch, and F me even more Ouch. My eyes, they were a burning, they were tearing, they were burning some more. The burning feeling  continued.

And these are Hatch peppers not even really hot peppers!

Anyhoo, the burning sensation eventually went away. A useful lesson was learned. 

I'm now going to make sure I have some plastic food handling gloves available and on my hands whenever handling even mild peppers.

So I'd count that as a success with eight roasted peppers and a practice exposure to pepper spray all in one go.

I would however suggest to most people to forgo the exposure part and just process the peppers while wearing gloves for a far more sedate and less painful process.